by Candace Robb
‘Why did you go in search of the maid?’
The Fitzbaldrics were looking their way. It was not the time for an argument.
‘We have been noted,’ Owen said. ‘I would talk to them. Your flask is empty now.’ He handed it back to her. ‘Go home. I’ll follow when I can.’
‘We are most grateful to you, Captain,’ said Fitzbaldric as they drew near. ‘God help me, but I was certain the house was empty.’ He did not look Owen in the eye.
‘We could not know she was up there,’ said his wife.
Owen was not interested in their excuses. ‘Have you seen the woman found in the undercroft?’
‘I did,’ said Fitzbaldric, ‘when they carried her out.’
‘You had identified her as your maid. Does she look like her?’
‘Have you seen the body, Captain? I could tell little else than that it was a woman. I assumed it was May.’
‘And you?’ Owen asked of Mistress Fitzbaldric.
‘I saw no cause to upset Adeline,’ Fitzbaldric said.
Owen ignored him, wanting his wife to answer for herself. ‘You cannot account for her?’
Adeline Fitzbaldric shook her head. ‘Our cook assisted at the Dales’ dinner. But May and Poins stayed at home. I do not allow my servants to entertain while they are in charge of the house.’
A crash drew all eyes back to the fire across the way. Flames shot from the doorway at the top of the steps.
‘We are ruined,’ moaned Adeline Fitzbaldric. ‘All the goods you had stored in the undercroft lost.’
Fitzbaldric put an arm round her. ‘We have the warehouse in Hull, Adeline. And the support of the guild.’
Thinking the couple caught up in one another, Owen began to cross over to find where the corpse lay. But he discovered Fitzbaldric hurrying after him.
The merchant stopped him in the middle of the street. ‘Is it true you are seeing to Poins?’
‘My wife so ruled.’
‘God bless you and all your household, Captain. He was in terrible pain.’
And might not live to tell the tale, or face punishment.
‘Who is that woman, Captain? We had no other women in the house.’
‘I have yet to see her. Where have they taken her?’
‘The neighbour’s shed, on the far side of the house. They put her there awaiting the coroner.’
‘See to your throat, your wounds, Master Fitzbaldric. You have been through much this night.’
As Thoresby sat over wine with Wykeham, listening to his complaints, his fears, the seriousness of the rift between Wykeham and Lancaster became clear to him. On the surface, Lancaster and Wykeham were alike in their lack of those pleasing graces that bind people to great men out of love, though where Lancaster was flint-eyed and cold, Wykeham was pinch-lipped and stubborn. The dangerous difference – dangerous to the bishop and all who crossed the duke – was Lancaster’s passionate nature. And in alienating Lancaster by the rumours of his lowly birth – or the failure to contradict the rumours in a sufficiently public arena – and then giving voice to the criticism of the duke’s ability as a general, Wykeham had insulted the man to the very heart. Which put much weight behind Wykeham’s fears.
Thoresby was considering how to express his thoughts diplomatically when he was distracted by voices from the hall entrance. What had been a murmur grew louder.
Wykeham shifted in his chair, glancing towards the carved screen that shielded them from the doorway.
From behind it came Brother Michaelo, his elegant face flushed, his bow and apology curt. ‘There is terrible news. The bishop’s house in Petergate is ablaze. A woman is dead, a man badly injured.’
‘God rest their souls,’ Thoresby said as he crossed himself.
Wykeham did the same, then demanded, ‘Who? The Fitzbaldrics?’
His clerk Alain hastened in after Michaelo. His pale hair clung damply to his head, his gown was spotted with water, his shoes created puddles. ‘Their servants,’ said Alain.
‘You were there?’
‘I was eating in a tavern when news of the fire drew all my fellows out to help – I followed, helping pass buckets until enough folk had arrived that I could slip away. I thought you should hear.’
Wykeham groaned. ‘God save us.’ He moved towards the screen passage, checked himself, raised a hand to his brow. ‘How bad is it?’ he asked Alain. ‘Is the house lost?’
‘Most of the house is gone. It began in the undercroft,’ said Alain.
‘What devil has been loosed against me?’ said Wykeham in a choked whisper.
‘Fires are common in a city such as York,’ Thoresby said, but Wykeham was not listening.
‘You said the undercroft – did it begin in the records room?’ Wykeham asked his clerk.
‘I do not know, My Lord Bishop.’
‘You had documents stored in the undercroft?’ Thoresby asked, belatedly understanding the implications of Wykeham’s questions.
‘Yes. Property records, accounts.’
‘Can anything be saved?’ Wykeham asked Alain.
‘If so it will be thanks to the folk of this city. They streamed from their houses with pots and buckets in hand, shouting directions to the nearest wells.’
‘They are saving their own properties,’ Thoresby noted.
‘Were any others injured?’ Wykeham asked his clerk.
‘I heard of no others. My Lord, I fear for your safety in York.’
Wykeham turned to Thoresby. ‘Captain Archer – he has investigated such things for you before.’
Seeing the fear in the eyes of the bishop and his clerk, Thoresby did not argue. ‘Michaelo, send for Archer.’
‘According to Alain the captain is at the fire, Your Grace.’
‘He rescued a maidservant from the solar,’ Alain said. ‘He is a courageous man.’
‘We have no need for heroics, just answers,’ Thoresby snapped. ‘Send for him.’
Crossing back towards the fire, Owen found Alfred. As they searched for a lantern and then headed for the shed, Owen asked what Alfred knew of the woman taken from the burning undercroft.
‘She was lying on her stomach just beyond the outstretched hand of the manservant.’
‘What else?’
‘If she had been lying any farther inside, they would not have seen her. Though that matters little to her.’
‘Someone will miss her, Alfred. At least they will know what happened. Has the coroner been here?’
‘He is helping with the fire. I do not think he has viewed the corpse.’
Owen could not fault him. The fire threatened the city. The unfortunate victim could wait. ‘What of a priest?’
‘Father Linus from St Michael-le-Belfrey gave her the last rites, in case her soul had not yet departed.’ Alfred nodded towards a man who had stepped away from the chain of water carriers and was drinking from a tankard being passed along. ‘One of the rescuers. Folk are making much of the two men who threw water over each other and went in to bring her out.’
‘They deserve the praise,’ said Owen, ‘to walk through fire for a woman they do not know.’
‘Who can say whether they know her? She is charred far worse than the man, as if she had lain in the heart of the fire. But the earth floor protected her face, and the front of her body.’
‘Then someone should be able to name her.’
‘She is not a pretty sight, Captain. Her face swelled in the heat and her hair is burned away. Her body is several times its size like someone pulled from the flood.’
They stood now before the shed.
‘Do you need me in there?’ Alfred asked in a voice that made it plain he prayed Owen would not.
‘Stay without, let no one disturb me.’
‘Gladly.’
The air in the shed was heavy with the odour of burned flesh. Owen left the door slightly ajar. The body had been laid out on a wattle panel, face up. Owen crouched down and slowly moved the lantern the length of the body. Alf
red had been right, she was a piteous sight, half her face blackened, misshapen, the unburned side bloated, distorting her features. Her torso was swollen, and charred but for a hand’s span down the length of it, where it had been protected by the earth floor. Owen shuttered the lantern and stepped outside for air.
Alfred was talking to one of his fellow palace guards.
‘I thought you were on duty at the palace,’ Owen said.
‘I am, Captain, but His Grace the Archbishop sent me to fetch you. He wants to hear what you have observed here.’
Brandywine, fragrant air free of smoke, far away from the stench of burned flesh – Owen minded the summons far less than was his habit. The prospect provided the spur he needed to return to the corpse within the shed, a respite at the end of the dread task of examining her. But he should also have a look at Poins. ‘Tell His Grace that I shall come soon, after I have been home to see how the injured servant is faring.’
The guard shook his head. ‘His Grace said he would accept no excuses, no delays.’
So Thoresby would get half the story. ‘Why is he so insistent, I wonder?’
‘He has asked for extra guards on the palace, also.’
Thoresby must believe the fire was a threat to Wykeham.
‘I shall follow soon.’
‘But …’
‘If I do not examine the corpse, I shall have little to tell His Grace.’
‘Aye, Captain.’
Owen withdrew to the shed and once again shone the lantern along the length of the woman’s body. He saw no remnants of a veil or cap, which might have protected some of her hair. One side of her head was caked with mud where it had been pressed to the earth. He found a length of sacking hanging on a hook on the wall of the shack and used it to wipe away some of the grime. He could see that her eyebrow was a light brown, a shade too common to set her apart. He tried to imagine her skin slack, her features more defined, but it was beyond his powers to do so. She was someone’s daughter, perhaps wife and mother. Someone would come forward to claim her. He thanked God he knew that all the women in his family had been safe when the fire began.
Something around the woman’s neck caught the lantern light, but her flesh had swelled around it. A piece of jewellery, perhaps. That might be useful in identifying her if the Fitzbaldrics did not come up with a name. Owen tilted her chin back gently. With the sacking protecting his hand, he reached for the item. It was polished metal, large for a lady’s neck, almost four fingers long, cutting into the swollen flesh above and below. A leather strap hung from it, the end so charred it crumbled in his fingers. He realized it was a buckle and a belt, or strap. The rest of the belt was deeply imbedded in the swollen flesh of her neck, secured by the brass buckle. Easing the leather through the buckle, he worked it out, trying not to tear the flesh. He was sweating and nauseated by the time he held the charred belt in his hands. The buckle had been positioned over her throat and had probably crushed it.
Owen’s discovery changed the temper of his examination. The woman was no accidental victim, a neighbour coming to talk with Poins while he fetched something from the undercroft, caught in a sudden blaze caused by an overturned candle. She had been murdered, her executioner, no doubt, hoping the fire would mask the deed, not counting on the quick response of the neighbours.
But they had not come in time to save her. May she rest in the light of Thy grace, dear Lord.
Gently Owen arranged the woman’s head so that the band of unburned flesh at the side of her neck, where the leather had protected it, was not noticeable. Whoever wrapped her in a shroud for burial might make note of it, but there were other abrasions and raw areas on her flesh where fragments of charred, brittle clothing had been pulled away, perhaps when she was moved. He hoped that only the murderer would know how she had died. With care, Owen coiled what was left of the belt around the buckle, wrapped it in the cloth, and tucked it into his scrip. He would show it to Thoresby and Wykeham, but no one here, not even the coroner – his job was but to record that she had died and how. For now he would be satisfied with death by burning.
Owen shuttered the lantern and stepped out of the shed. Alfred awaited him.
‘Get me some water to wash my hands. Then I want to talk to the men who carried her out.’
Owen leaned back against the wall while he waited, hands hanging at his sides, eye closed, breathing. Even the smoky air was better than the air in the shed.
Alfred returned with the man he had pointed out earlier. Owen recognized him as a blacksmith’s apprentice – someone unafraid of fire. He had little to add to what Owen had already heard.
Another man came forward, holding out a leather strap decorated with glass beads. ‘This dropped from the woman, I think,’ he said, placing it in Owen’s hand.
It was a pretty bauble, or had been before the fire had ruined it, perhaps the woman’s girdle. Owen added it to the other piece of leather in his scrip. It was something by which she might be identified.
‘Tell me about the other, the injured man.’
‘He lay beneath a burning barrel. His arm broken.’
‘Why did he not free himself?’
‘His head was bleeding. Perhaps he was in a faint.’
‘The barrel was atop him?’
‘Aye.’
Owen drew Alfred away from the others. ‘I want a guard on my house, where the injured man lies.’
‘Protecting a witness?’
‘Aye.’ Or the murderer. ‘And my family.’
‘Colin is in this crowd. I shall find him and take him with me.’
‘Good man.’
Three
PAINFUL REMEDIES
Soaking a cloth in a bowl of water, Lucie knelt to the injured man. Poins, the Fitzbaldric couple had called him. He had patches of dark hair between the burned areas, trimmed close to his head, prominent bones, a broad forehead underscored by dark, straight brows – though all the hair might be burned and not naturally dark at all. On the right side of his face he had blisters high on his cheek and forehead, and his right ear looked as if it had been even more severely burned. There were perhaps bruises on his left cheek – it was difficult to tell with his face streaked with soot. She dabbed at the dirt. He winced. She guessed by the condition of his clothes that he had burns on all his limbs, though his principal injuries were the gash on his head and his shattered and burned right arm. He lay with it thrust out from him as if he would shake it off if he could. The colour of the arm was unnatural. Every now and then he gave a violent shiver. Though it was warm here by the fire, she knew that after such an injury one often needed extra warmth.
Lucie’s elderly aunt sat on a stool nearby, clutching her elbows as if protecting herself from the man’s agony. Phillippa had been confused when Poins was brought into the house, thinking she was back on the manor of Freythorpe Hadden the night the gatehouse had been ablaze. It had taken the maid Kate a long while to convince her that this had been a different fire, involving none of her family, none of her property. But it was clear that Phillippa was still ill at ease. Lucie thought some occupation might calm her.
‘Aunt, would you fetch some cushions and blankets from the chest at the top of the stairs?’
Phillippa responded slowly, moving her fingers as if rediscovering them. Then she rubbed her cheeks, her eyes. ‘What did you say, child?’
Lucie repeated the request.
Phillippa rose and came over, holding her hands close to the fire while she gazed down on Poins. ‘He cannot be cold – it is so warm here.’
‘Yet he shivers, Aunt.’
Phillippa watched until she saw the tremor move through Poins. ‘I see. I shall bring what I can carry.’
Lucie bent to him again and gently pressed the cloth to his soot-streaked forehead, his cheeks, his chin. Except for the blisters on his cheek and forehead his face was untouched. She set the cloth aside, picked up the brandywine and a spoon. Before she tried removing the rest of his clothing she would numb him, i
f she could. Wheezing and occasionally moaning, Poins did not respond to Lucie’s efforts to get him to drink the brandywine. She kept up a soft patter, using his name, telling him that the brandywine would ease the pain, that he would soon be warm, that the Riverwoman was on her way. Phillippa returned with the blankets and they tucked them around him, lifted his head and gently placed a cushion beneath it. After a while his shivering ceased and at last he began to suck at the spoon. He seemed quieter by the time Magda Digby arrived.
Even so, Lucie thanked God for the Riverwoman’s presence. With little ado, Magda set her pack down on the small table Lucie had placed nearby, then crouched beside her.
For a long while Magda considered Poins, holding his right hand, touching the elbow, the shoulder. At last she said, ‘Magda will need thy help.’
‘Of course. I thought first we should undress him.’
‘Aye, see what else he suffers.’
Phillippa handed Lucie a pair of scissors. ‘It is no use saving the cloth, the fire has ruined it.’
The poor man whimpered when they pulled the cloth from his left calf, which was already blistering. His right thigh looked worse, but he did not flinch when they pulled the cloth from it.
‘All feeling has been burned from it,’ said Magda. ‘That is not a good sign.’
Elsewhere, he had abrasions and some small blisters, but Lucie was relieved to see no additional life-threatening injuries. The arm was bad enough.
Magda stopped her when she drew near that arm with the scissors. ‘No need.’ She withdrew to the table. From her large leather pack Magda drew out bottles, jars and pouches, arranging them on the table. ‘Fetch Magda wine.’
To Lucie’s surprise, Phillippa rose to respond, taking the ruined clothing with her. From where she knelt Lucie watched as the Riverwoman set a small pot over the fire. Magda noticed her interest and named the ingredients as she slowly mixed them in. ‘Three spoonfuls each of the gall of a barrow swine, hemlock juice, briony, lettuce, poppy, henbane and vinegar.’
Recognizing the ingredients of dwale, a potent mixture Magda used for surgery, Lucie realized that the arm was to be removed. She had been afraid of that – she had never witnessed an amputation, much less helped with one.
